r/Payroll

Good day everyone . Hopefully someone can help . My wife and I make also exact salaries yet her take home is higher than mine . We have the same allowances which is zero, married but tax as single etc . Ive also noticed my bonus is heavily taxed . I only receive like 52% of the actual bonus . When I ran my bonus estimate through paycheck city , salary, websites they all say it should be like 1,000 more than what I'm receiving. How do I make sure im not getting over taxed or worse HR is screwing me over ?

We recently started to use Warp for payroll processing. So far they are fine, but some of the things they suggest to me are so crazy I wonder if I am being pranked. For example:

Our pay period is Sunday through Saturday with the pay day the following Wednesday. They recently asked my why we don't just have our pay day on Friday. I kinda laughed because that's absurd but they were dead serious. I explained that I still have people on the clock on Friday and Saturday and the pay period is not even over. They pretty much said "so"? I also explained that since we are on a 3 day approval, I would have to submit payroll on Tuesday to be paid on Friday and all of my hourly people would submit falsified time cards. They didn't bat an eye, said just give everyone estimated hours and true up on the next check.

I just had to gently and firmly tell them no, I would not change my pay day. I actually feel like they were annoyed by me. What was worse is that a "lead compliance" person was on the call and she saw ZERO issue with falsified time cards.

This happened a few weeks ago and I am still trying to figure out how they thought any of that was a good idea or remotely compliant.

I'm in the market to update our excel timesheets to an online timesheet platform that i can export the data into another system with

I dont need HR, I don't payroll processing. Just something that can track tasks/projects, PTO, and export codes into another system via xls. I don't need a physical timepunch system either.

Give me your favorites

Things that dont seem to fit our needs: ADP, myhour,BambooHR

Edit: I'm not against AI platforms, as long they dont cost as much an additional employee.

Hi everyone. I need some assistance with calculating regular rate of pay (RRP) and applying this appropriately to our OT hours.

Our lawyer gave us the formula: regular rate x 40 + commission / 40 hours = RRP

and I know OT is determined by workweek, so the OT premium should be allocated by each workweek containing total sales and earnings

Our situation is unique: we have a semi monthly pay period with certain commission calculable at time of sale and other at month end.

my question is, how do we go about paying this out appropriately? I see a lot of mixed things everywhere, from DLSE opinion letters to reddit. Thank you!

I was very confused looking at my most recent pay as it was much more than usual. It could also be due to other things like stat holiday/vacation but just to make sure, I haven’t spent my pay at all. I want to speak with my manager in person about it when she’s in ( I feel like she is annoyed sometimes so I try not to message her when WFH)

Has anyone had any experience leaving Paycom to go with Paylocity? My team and I are currently with ADP Workforce, and we despise it, to say the least.

We’re choosing between Paycom and Paylocity, but we’re leaning more toward Paycom for how consistent they’ve been with us. If anyone has switched from Paycom to Paylocity, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Hi guys! as the title says, I got an upcoming interview for Payroll Associate. For my background: I'm an Information Technology graduate and I applied for this position just to try it. Luckily, they chose me for initial screening for the role. I just have questions how I can survive the screening.

1. How can I sell myself for this role even though I am from different field?

• I have basics knowledge in MS Excel and currently learning more about it. I also have exp in data entry or tracking of data during my internship (but not filtering it or making a pivot table or graphs or anything) I also have experience in MySQL during my college, so I know how simple querying works.

Our local CPA was doing our payroll in house until recently. They switched us to OnPay and are actually firing us because they are getting rid of their payroll department. We'll make a decision on whether or not to stick with OnPay before the end of the year, but in the meantime...

Has anyone using OnPay figured out how to get check numbers for garnishments? Our CPA asked for them via chat help and was told they don't give check numbers. But now that I can login myself I want to see for myself.

We use Positive Pay for our checking account and currently I don't know the check numbers until Positive Pay catches them. That's fine and all, but I was out of the office this week and missed some before the Positive Pay deadline so they were returned to the court.

This is going to be a pain in the ass going forward. I'm a small operation and hopefully can catch and cross reference these. But how is a 300-500 employee company supposed to handle this for dozens of garnishments each week?

I asked 3 different AI, they all tell me none of the answers are correct. I'm confused. This is one of the post-test question. Please help. I'm guessing, it is likely be B. I thought A might be right, I read something during the course about giving people time off. It might be for public sector only. I'm not sure why B could keep the OT cost down. Thanks.

Employers in the private sector can keep their expenses for employee overtime down and remain in compliance with the FLSA by doing which of the following:

A Giving the employee compensatory time off for every hour worked by the employee in a workweek in excess of 40 hours

B Giving employees who are paid biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly time off during the same pay period in which the overtime was worked that is at least equal to one and one-half hours off for each overtime hour worked.

C Obtain a written agreement from the employee waiving the right to overtime premium pay after the employee has worked overtime in that workweek.

D Adding the employee's hours in one workweek to the next workweek and averaging the two workweeks.

Working closely with HR teams hiring internationally, one budgeting mistake comes up repeatedly: treating the EOR fee as the total additional cost.

In reality, the monthly cost is:

Gross salary + employer-side contributions + EOR fee

For a $5,000/month employee, using Multiplier’s $459 starting fee:

• Germany: $459 + $5,000 + ~$950 in employer costs = ~$6,410/month
• India: $459 + $5,000 + ~$650 in employer costs = ~$6,110/month

Same salary and EOR fee, but around $300/month difference because statutory costs vary by country.

I’ve also seen teams overlook implementation fees, mandatory benefits, payroll deposits, FX costs and termination charges.

My advice: ask for a sample invoice before choosing an EOR. The headline price rarely shows the complete hiring cost.

What’s one EOR cost that caught your HR or finance team by surprise?

Hi, probably worded that badly. I work remotely and the company is based in AZ, i am one of 4 people that WFH in the company. I originally was hired as a remote worker while I was in California then i moved to Colorado late last year. However i just now noticed on my check it says it pulls Arizona State Withholding for my taxes. Is this okay? Or is it supposed to be where I live at? Tried googling it but couldn’t get an answer that I understood and would love to hear from all you experts who can enlighten me far better than my own ability.

Thank you so much in advance and sorry if this is a dumb question.

Edit: To clarify, I informed employer before move, during and after I moved. There is an email trail of this and the appropriate people confirming that I was “all set”
I also in our pay system, Paycom, updated my address as well as soon as I signed my new lease. I see a lot of comments doubting this and idk what to say besides I did all the steps and such, that’s why I was confused if it was correct as I didn’t see how an error would have been made. Now I’ve reached out to the team that handles payroll and our HR team now since everyone in the comments is confirming this was pulling the incorrect taxes. I hope this can be an easy and quick fix.

Thank you to those who explained it as I would have never known. Here is to hoping my taxes aren’t completely fucked this year haha.

Hi everyone

I'm taking the CPP exam this fall and am struggling on deciding if I should go to a testing center (3 hrs away) or take it online. The only enticing part of the testing center is having a physical calculator and test paper.
Q: do you get a physical copy of the 15-T at a testing center?
Q: If you took it at online at home, were you able to have both the exam and the 15-T on your screen or did you have to sift back and forth for calculations?

Any advice/input from your experience is greatly appreciated!

Hello everyone,

I hope you will read this and share your thoughts and comments.

Two years ago, I wrote a post about my payroll journey. On June 1, 2026, I was terminated from that position.

Today is June 10, and I still feel stuck in that moment. I have cried, screamed, questioned myself, and I am still grieving the loss of my job.

Maybe my story will help someone else avoid the mistakes I made.

With honesty and courage, I want to share my own mistakes and what I learned from them.

I was hired on January 29, 2024, as a Payroll Officer.

From the beginning, my Controller (who was the Assistant Controller when I started) helped me, guided me, and supported me. Before every payroll run, we would discuss exceptions and unusual situations. He reviewed my payroll in detail and often caught mistakes. I kept notes on my computer and phone about the errors he pointed out. I also created checklists and payroll to-do lists to help me stay organized.

I tracked things such as:

• ⁠New hires

• ⁠Terminations

• ⁠Retirements

• ⁠Salary increases

• ⁠Cost changes

• ⁠Retroactive pay

• ⁠Acting pay

• ⁠Overtime

• ⁠Maternity leave

• ⁠Leave without pay

• ⁠Benefit changes

• ⁠Name changes

It was a mid-sized organization with about 100 salaried employees. The payroll itself was not extremely complex, but there were still many details to manage.

I handled retiring allowances, severance payments, year-end processing, T4s, pension adjustments, and major salary increase projects. Whenever I didn't know something, I researched it, contacted the National Payroll Institute if necessary, and often spent personal time learning payroll-related topics.

I completed:

• ⁠Two large pay increase projects

• ⁠Two pension adjustment projects

• ⁠Two year-end and T4 cycles

I genuinely cared about my job.

Yet I was terminated for performance.

Looking back, here is my honest reflection.

First, I was not consistently following documented checklists. I often relied on memory, notes in Excel, or mental reminders instead of building detailed checklists every time I made a mistake.

Second, I convinced myself that my manager was my safety net. He reviewed payroll thoroughly and regularly found issues before payroll was released.

Third, over time I became comfortable with that arrangement. Every time he found an error, I felt terrible, but I did not take enough action to create stronger controls and processes for myself.

Between 2024 and 2026, I successfully ran many payrolls without errors. My manager even told me "Good job" several times.

However, in 2026 things changed.

I believe January payrolls were error-free, but during May and June there were errors in multiple payroll runs.

Examples included:

• ⁠An over-deduction that I failed to identify. An employee brought it to my attention on the next pay.

• ⁠A taxable benefit assigned to the wrong employee during a rushed payroll.

• ⁠A parking deduction entered incorrectly because I manually typed the amount instead of copying and pasting it, resulting in a transposition error.

There was also a significant issue involving new Board Members.

The Board Members were paid through two companies. HR created their ADP profiles, while I was responsible for reviewing the information and creating records in the accounting system.

The HR employee was new and had missed several items. I caught and corrected many of them, but I failed to correct the Home Department on some profiles and failed to update an address. Most importantly, I correctly marked one company profile as EI-exempt but forgot to make the same change in the second company profile.

My manager discovered these errors.

The mistakes seemed to be occurring one after another.

The difficult part is that during this period, my manager never formally expressed concerns about my job security. He never told me my position was at risk. I knew I needed to be more careful, but I did not realize how serious the situation had become.

Around the same time, the organization hired a very experienced employee who had ADP experience and had previously run payroll with minimal supervision in a similar organization.

Management decided to move her into the payroll position and hire a replacement for her former role.

I was asked to help train her.

On the day I was terminated, the Director told me that my manager was becoming busier, would no longer be able to review my work in detail, enough coaching had already been provided, and that I was not the right fit for the position. I was given a severance package.

Looking back, I believe my biggest failure was not building a detailed, formal review process that did not depend on someone else catching my mistakes.

If I had followed stronger checklists, double-checked exceptions, and created a more detailed onboarding checklist for Board Members, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

What frustrates me most is feeling blindsided.

I genuinely believed we were working as a team. I believed producing an accurate payroll was a collaborative effort. During my December performance review, there were no negative comments. I even asked my manager whether he spent more time with me than with the other employees he supervised. His response was:

"As long as we catch the mistakes before payroll goes out, that's what matters."

That statement reinforced my belief that we were succeeding as a team.

Now I realize I misunderstood the situation.

I owned the payroll. The responsibility was ultimately mine.

If someone had clearly told me, "Your job is at risk if these errors continue," I would have completely changed my approach.

I would have:

• ⁠Built detailed checklists for every recurring process

• ⁠Slowed down payroll processing

• ⁠Requested additional review time

• ⁠Created specialized checklists for new and unusual situations

• ⁠Focused more heavily on error prevention

I was not careless.

I cross-checked calculations.

I verified bank account numbers.

I carefully reviewed SIN information against TD1 forms.

I manually investigated unusual earnings changes.

I reviewed payroll multiple times.

But despite all of that, I still made mistakes.

And I was terminated.

I understand management's perspective. They likely saw risk. They likely felt that without detailed managerial review, errors would continue. They had another candidate with more experience and a proven ability to work independently.

Still, I believe my weakness was in my process, not my ability to learn.

That is what I struggle with today.

I keep asking myself:

If I had been clearly warned, would I have changed enough to save my job?

I will never know.

What I do know is that I cared deeply about the work, and losing it has been devastating.

I am still sad.

I am still angry.

Most of all, I am still trying to understand how something I cared so much about ended so

suddenly and why I failed to understand that my job is at risk . Board members error shocked me - though I checked and was trying my best , Home address - i didn’t crossed checked with the original paper ( I assumed HR had coded correct and I hat has added the address in accounting software. There diff. Board member, retro pay ,tax complexity - I hugely regret forgetting home department, EI exempt. I realize manager was tired

reviewing my payroll and

Management believed I cannot improve . I been there for 29 months But I think they should have given me - straight indication (in formal way or just say I am getting busier. Manager saw my errors only but didn’t think why the error was occurring. I was under impression manager knows I am trying ,I care about this job , I believe he is my safety net .New employees arrival was impacted their decision to .

Should I really work in payroll ????! What do you think where I really failed ? What should have my manager done ? They terminated me without distributing regular business activities . New employee handling payroll.

Thank you for reading.

I was terminated from a position on march 1st. I submitted my hours for the month of February on march 3rd, as a result I was not paid for the last 2.5 weeks of work at my old company that used harvested for timekeeping. I was immediately locked out of any company services on my date of termination and therefore do not have access to my records. I’m wondering, what is my recourse and/or am I entitled to the pay I did not receive . FYI I am based in Mass.

Warning, this is mostly me venting, sorry for all the text. I am still green to this industry. I’m based in Canada. I have been with my current employer for less than a year and from day 1 I have hated it here.

My last payroll-related job was a 50-person animation company where I was accounting assistant and thrust into payroll administration/clerical work. I think that whole company and environment is what made me think I enjoyed Payroll, because I am currently working towards my PCP designation.

My current role is at a 2k employee, half-unionized, multi province, extremely high turnover rate, multi pay cycle company. HUGE difference, and I was hired by my manager knowing the experience (or lack) I had.

All these words to say; today I realized I made a huge mistake during my first month at this company. I entered a new hires salary more than it should have been and they’ve been overpaid for months. I’m not making excuses for myself, I am beating myself up over it.

My training for this role was essentially a month of sitting beside my manager and listen to her talk… about everything. I can tell you her entire extended family, their jobs, death dates, her real age, favourite colour, her entire career from her first job to most current, etc. I know this woman more than I know my own mother. And between all that, I filled up 3 notebooks of good info that I will take with me wherever. After that, the second part of my job title training came from the receptionist (who used to do my job but hated it) and a co-op student they fired for not being good.

Circling back to my mistake, it happened during the training session from the receptionist and co-op student, and my manager (only 2 of us in payroll dept) has chewed me a new asshole, and never in her 20 years of experience has she ever made a mistake like this. Valid. Today has sucked and I’m now on LinkedIn searching for something else even though I hope I don’t get fired for this but I already feel like crying and giving up.

TLDR: I made a payroll error and now I don’t know if I should continue with this career or just this job.

Maryland, USA.

The company started going through financial hardship and started paying us through Zelle from the owner’s personal bank account or with a company check.

They’re paying me my net pay (after taxes) so they should be paying my taxes to the IRS. How can I ask for proof of that? A coworker had to pay thousands last year for his taxes because supposedly they didn’t pay for his taxes. I don’t want to go through the same issue.

I work in payroll, and am coming up on my 4th year in payroll processing, and 3rd year at this company. It’s a very small payroll and tax company, more tax focused than payroll which is obvious.. it brings in more money. I applied for a payroll specialist position, but definitely did a lot of training and learning as I went. Well now I’ve found myself a little burnt out, too burnt out for this early in the career.

I process about 5 weekly, 18 bi-weekly(both weeks), and about 20 2x a months. Some 2x are 5th and 20th, some are 15th and EOM. These are all live payrolls, with a POC reporting hours to me, anywhere from 2 to 20 employees. Also need to mention that all of these payrolls are split between two payroll softwares, I use and am proficient in both.
Some of these payrolls I track PTO polices(hour balances, anniversaries to move up PTO tiers, and of course ensuring compliance with state regs), some I don’t track and just pay VP or SP when they state.
Some I track retirement contributions, and submit them to their respective places. (Some submitted online, some I print a check and send in) I track retirement limits, and in the instance employees max out, I even have to manually calculate the 3% ER match from wages because our payroll platform stops calculating the match once they hit salary deferral limit.
Please keep in mind the many pop up items that come with running payrolls.. final checks, bonuses, favors, paystubs, etc….
Now onto taxes. After each payroll, I submit federal and state taxes both semi weekly and monthly. This part I should clarify, I do not go into EFTPS, but I enter all of these into a spreadsheet, someone else bulk pays them. But once a payroll is out of state, I then take on the responsibility of filing and paying through that specific state website. I do some reconciliation for all payroll taxes each quarter, and then complete the 941s, SUTA(SUI), and FAMLI. In total I do about 50 quarterly taxes. So year end, this means another 50 940s added in, and in total, somewhere around 3-500 W2s I send out. This past year I have felt like giving up every single Jan, Apr, July, and Oct.

Anyway, the stress has been getting to me. I do not have a CPP, although I would like to, I just don’t feel like I have the time. I make about 55k a year. Any insight into my pay, stress, and responsibilities is appreciated!!

I’ll never understand why these companies are so strict about Workday experience. If someone has over 7 years experience is multiple different systems, that should be enough to consider interviewing them. 🙄

Hello!

I work for a multi-state company with 10k+ employees across biweekly and semimonthly pay schedules. We process salary+hourly wages and commissions, and we also have our own internal commission/pay-period bonus system.

We also have many employees who work in secondary jobs across different locations and departments. They need to do a transfer on their timecard so the correct job, location, and department are captured for accounting/budget allocation purposes.

Our company is currently looking into transitioning from UKG Pro + WFM for payroll and timekeeping to either Dayforce or Workday. Leaders have already been in meetings with them.

So far, my payroll system experience has mainly been with UKG Pro, UTA, and WFM. I'm a Payroll Analyst.

Has anyone here worked with UKG Pro, Dayforce, and Workday? I would love to hear about your experience with either systems, especially from a payroll processing perspective.

Thank you in advance!

Hi there, I am currently having an issue with my pay being lower than expected at my new job. I worked 31 hours with 17 an hour pay, got 170 in tips, and then only received 311 on my actual pay check. Washington no longer taxes on tips- but they do get taken out of paychecks and we get them back on tax returns.

My employer said that that my missing pay (roughly 160) was due to the total percentage of taxes on average being 25%. Is this correct? I have never in my life had this much taken out for taxes and it just seems fishy.